Weekly Update:7/27/26

It's Monday once again, Zone Base readers!

Like many of you, I spent the weekend watching the overwhelming flood of San Diego Comic-Con news roll across my feeds. Of course, that's not all I did, but as you've probably guessed, I'm going to share a few thoughts on everything before getting into what I did and what I picked up over the weekend.

Transformers-

Generations/Studio Series – While much of what Hasbro showed at San Diego Comic-Con had already been previewed or leaked online, it was still nice getting a better look at Nexus Prime's combiner team. I've been putting off picking up Nexus Prime, but I do plan on building the full team eventually. I love the colors they've chosen.

The Monster Jam Gravedigger crossover is also looking like a must-have for me. Not only is it a really fun design, but it practically feels like a new version of Dirt Boss from Transformers Cybertron. That was always one of my favorite toys from the line, yet it never really received any follow-up outside of Bot Shots and Attacktix.

There are already a few Monster Jam-inspired designs showing up in the white-box Transformers "kids" line, so I'm beginning to wonder if this partnership is going to be more of an ongoing thing rather than just a one-off collaboration.

And I will definitely own that Shockwave Whale. 

Blokees – Recent rumors suggest that the upcoming Galaxy Version series may be based on the IDW comics, while Defender Version 08 is rumored to be themed around Battlestars. While I'll definitely be trying to pick up some of the Galaxy Version kits, you all know by now that I buy a case of every Defender Version assortment. I absolutely love them, and a Battlestars theme would send me into orbit.

Of course, none of this has been confirmed, so take it with a grain of salt. But if these rumors turn out to be true, I'll be ecstatic.

The rumored lineup includes Star Convoy (standard, Nemesis, and possibly Galaxy Convoy), Super Megatron (standard and special versions), Sky Garry, Dark Nova, Slag in dinosaur mode, Nemesis Prime, Dead End in vehicle mode, Mirage (robot and vehicle), Trailbreaker, Beachcomber (Brilliant Version), and Shattered Glass Ratchet.

Blokees also showed off several new Classic Class and Champion Class kits based on the live-action movies. I honestly can't remember if we've seen some of these before or not, but they all looked fantastic. I'd especially love to get the Classic Class Bumblebee from the *Bumblebee* movie. It's still my favorite of the live-action films, and I absolutely love that version of Bumblebee's design.

We also got a much better look at the upcoming Action Edition Optimus Prime 2.0 kit.

I WANT IT!

I still haven't picked up any of the Action Edition kits and decided to wait for the 2.0 version of Optimus after seeing the early preview images. That decision has been validated about tenfold. It looks absolutely amazing. 

Masters of the Universe –

Mattel showed off a handful of new Masters of the Universe figures from both the Origins and Chronicles lines, and they all looked fantastic. I'm especially fond of the He-Man wearing the blue outfit, which also appears to be getting a release in the Core Class line.

There also seems to be a new version of Panthor on the way, and I don't it's possible for me to skip him.

It's no secret that the movie didn't set the box office on fire, but now that it's arriving on streaming, I wouldn't be surprised to see it find a much larger audience—much like several of the more recent Transformers films have. Honestly, with Amazon MGM behind it, theatrical releases almost feel like a preview these days. Streaming is where these movies really seem destined to find their audience.

Ghostbusters – Hasbro unveiled its new The Real Ghostbusters Ecto-Plazms line, and I am PUMPED!

These are small collectible figures of the Ghostbusters and ghosts from the cartoon, cast in multiple colors and packaged in little cans styled after the classic Ecto-Plasm slime containers. I'm still not entirely sure if they're closer to keshi figures or little army men, but honestly, I don't care.

This is the perfect Ghostbusters toy line for me. 

I haven't been this excited about a Ghostbusters toy since the Ecto Minis blind bags back in 2016.

AWESOME! 

BeastBOX– BeastBOX recently unveiled their new Primal Roar blind box line, and I am absolutely salivating over these things.

Each Primal Roar set includes a dinosaur skeleton and a modern military vehicle—like a Tyrannosaurus skeleton paired with an army tank. You get both the dinosaur and vehicle modes, they can combine into a hybrid form, and then the whole thing transforms into BeastBOX's signature box mode.

As if that wasn't enough, collecting multiple figures lets you combine them into a giant gattai robot. There are alternate color versions as well, including realistic fossil-colored skeletons and translucent variants.

Sadly, I haven't picked up a BeastBOX figure in quite a while, and that's something I plan to fix soon. There have been several recent releases I've had my eye on, and these Primal Roar figures have shot straight to the top of that list.

The Weekend- There was a lot more news from the weekend. SDCC, Wonderfest, and ACGHK, but obviously I can only talk about so much here. It's all exciting and makes for a fun future of toys. Me? I didn't go to them, but enjoyed the sights and sounds from them online. Instead I enjoyed a weekend at home with the Mrs organizing more of our new place and some good TV. Played Starfox some more and got in a little time with Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2. I'd been sitting on it since downloading and haven't played it much. As for toys, a trip to Walmart ended up with a second Elita-1 from the Blokees Transformers One wave 2 case and I finally ordered a Blokees Transformers Wheels Series 3 case. Considering I haven't assembled many from Series 2, I've got some building to do!

I'm starting to get my feet underneath me more with the TikTok/Reels I've been slowly working on and anticipate several of these kits to pop up as those. I've never been a big social media guy, but like I said, plan to making those a part of the site going forward. Please check me out and follow! Well, I've got a busy day ahead of me. Halloween on Zone Base starts next week and I've got some fun spooky shit coming! As usual I've been hanging up the decorations around the site early in anticipation of the rising red moon. Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem starts running wild soon! Thank you all for reading Zone Base. Please share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other!

Beast Man [Masters of the Universe]

@robfromzonebase Beast Man (Masters of The Universe/Core Class) #zonebase #mastersoftheuniverse #toys #mattel #evilwarriors ♬ Ceremony - Holy Wars

I really liked the new Masters of the Universe movie and, of the many things I enjoyed about it, Beast Man was definitely one of them. Like much of the film, he stayed very true to his classic incarnation. He wasn't quite the buffoon he often became in the old cartoon (okay... maybe just a little), but he definitely felt like the genuine threat he was in those original mini-comics.

Like I've said before, Beast Man was actually one of my very first MOTU toys, even before I got He-Man and Skeletor, so I've always been a little attached to the character.

Once again, we're looking at one of the new Core Class figures and, just like the others, it's surprisingly impressive.

For what's essentially the budget line, Beast Man has a really solid amount of articulation. It's obviously not on the level of a more premium figure, but it's far better than you'd expect at this price point.

Part of me wonders if Mattel is sharing CAD work with some of their other lines to help keep costs down because Beast Man genuinely looks like he should cost more than he does.

His sculpt and paint applications are excellent.

Honestly...

He looks so good that I still have a hard time accepting he's a Core Class figure.

This is the sort of quality I'd have expected from one of the old McFarlane Spawn figures back in the early 2000s, only with much nicer plastic.

Of course, Beast Man comes with his traditional whip. Oddly enough, I appreciate that accessory much more as an adult than I ever did as a kid. Part of that is because the original toy's whip wasn't exactly the greatest, but it's also because I've come to appreciate how well it fits the character.

After all, Beast Man's real power is his ability to telepathically control animals. The whip almost feels less like a weapon and more like a tool for someone who regularly wrangles wild beasts... probably not very kindly.

This is one of those figures that completely surprises you with just how good it is. If the rest of the Core Class line continues at this level, I think Mattel has a real winner on their hands.

He-Man [MOTU Core Class]

The new Masters of the Universe Core Class toys are pretty great, as I said when talking about that initial Skeletor figure a little while back. Now that the movie is here, the size class is hitting shelves hard with a really solid line of figures that I really enjoy.

I picked up the initial He-Man figure over Memorial Day weekend and can't put him down. It's a solid representation of Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man that looks pretty good. Like, it's a good representation of him that isn't a higher-priced Chronicles/Masterverse, or Mondo figure. This is literally the base model, and it's pretty nice. Decent paint, sculpting, and articulation.

Core Class is a lower-priced line, so He-Man only comes with his Power Sword as an accessory, but it's also nicely sculpted and can store on his back.

Like I said in the Skeletor post, I hope they include more than just the new movie characters in this line because it's perfect. I'd love to see original Masters of the Universe or New Adventures of He-Man characters done in this format.

As I'm writing this, the movie hasn't come out yet, but it will have by the time you read this. Hopefully opinions of the new film are as positive as these toys are.

I can't wait to get the Core Class Battle Cat to pair him with. These are so good that I'm not even thinking about Origins or Chronicles/Masterverse. I'd be more than happy to buy Mighty Masters and Core Class figures for my MOTU toy fix.

That's just me, not a flex... He-Man does enough of that on his own.

Masters of...Moving

It's Monday yet again and a particularly busy Monday for me. Moving day is this weekend and I've got a mountain of work to do... and have had all weekend! Though I did pick up some fun stuff. Target didn't have any new Transformers, but did have Tiny Turbo Changers. I grabbed 2 packs and pulled Black Arachnia and Whirl! I also grabbed the Core Class Battle Cat figure from the Masters of The Universe movie toys. Sunday morning we watched MOTU and it sure was a lot of fun. While there I got a cool cup with a Skeletor figure topper and the Mrs got me a awesome popcorn bucket with He-Man and Skeletor. I loved the movie and will be giving my thoughts below as seems to be the way I'm doing these movie thoughts posts latley. I've got a ton to do today and it's time to get to work. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. Please share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other.

Masters of The Universe (2026): It was pretty awesome seeing He-Man and the Heroic Warriors fight Skeletor and the Evil Warriors on the big screen in a movie that felt truly inspired by the classic Filmation cartoon series that I watch still to this day. The movie managed to balance the silliness with awesomeness that makes MOTU great with great humor and refferences to the lines history and even the memes that have became associated with it. Even Dolph Lundgren makes a fun cameo in a pretty clever scene. Everything felt right and at no time did I find myself wishing something would have been better. Excellent adaptation that's leaving me wanting more!

Skeletor [Mighty Masters]

Skeletor is a lot of things. Originally an evil demon before his origin was later rewritten into him being the former Keldor, who had been transformed into Skeletor, a skull-faced man. I've made countless jokes before about He-Man fighting an army of Halloween decorations, but the thing with Skeletor is... he was actually inspired by a haunted house prop.

Mark Davis has said that when he was designing Skeletor, he took inspiration from a neon-painted skeleton that scared the crap out of him as a kid in the Laugh in the Dark haunted house. Turns out, that skeleton was a little scarier than anyone knew. The same prop was later discovered not to be a dummy, but an actual corpse that had somehow found its way there. This was discovered when an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man was being filmed and the crew accidentally broke its arm off. Turns out, it was the body of Elmer McCurdy, a Wild West bandit whose corpse became a sideshow attraction that eventually found its way into that haunted house. Skeletor doesn’t just look spooky, he’s tied to a legitimately spooky true story.

This Mighty Masters figure of him is great and, just like the others, is a nice little replica of his original toy. He has the same swinging waist gimmick He-Man has and comes with his trademark Havok Staff to swing around while using it. It’s an extremely likable mini figure of Skeletor and... you know what? I always liked his demon origin better. You didn’t ask, and that was abrupt, but thug life.

I’ve always been a fan of Skeletor’s armor. Faker uses it in orange colors, and it looks fabulous. This is a great little figure to keep you company at your desk or even carry around in a cargo pocket. Just the right size and neatness.

Unfortunately, it’s also the last of the Mighty Masters for the time being. I really hope Mattel continues making these and that there are future series with more Heroic and Evil Warriors. I’ve heard talk of 3D prints of Castle Grayskull out there that are in scale with this... and honestly, that’s awesome.

He-Man [Mighty Masters]

He's the most powerful man in the universe, he's He-Man! The main hero of Masters of the Universe of course is in the initial Mighty Masters series and looking great.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he doesn't have the same swinging arm gimmick Man-At-Arms and Beast Man have. Instead, he features a pull-back waist similar to the original Masters of the Universe figures! I had wrongly assumed the swinging arm gimmick was line wide and am very happy to see variety like this. Considering the size and price, I'm impressed they even included gimmicks.

He-Man, like the others, is a fairly decent reproduction (there's some differences) of the original toy in mini figure form. He's got his trademark Power Sword, which even has a little holster on the back of his hardly-there armor.

So here's where I make an admission. MOTU came out when I was very young... and I totally thought he was the bad guy at first. Yep, you heard me. I thought Skeletor was the good guy.

That first commercial featured a skull-faced castle with a skull-faced guy and some normal dude threatening him. To be fair, I was 4 and completely not listening to or comprehending the dialog. I also liked monsters, which clearly has never left my system.

Well, it didn't take me much longer to realize He-Man was the good guy and the army of Halloween decorations were the villains. Who knew?

Oh... yeah. This Mighty Masters figure of the apparently good guy is pretty great.

Man-At-Arms [Mighty Masters]

Like Beast Man, Man-At-Arms was one of the first MOTU toys I ever got, even before He-Man and Skeletor (my older brother got those). So I’ve always naturally gravitated towards him, just like with Beast Man. His inclusion in the initial batch of Mighty Masters was pretty obvious, and welcome too.

This is a pretty nice mini figure recreation of the original toy, with the addition of his mustache. That’s something that was lacking on the original figure, but ever since its addition in the cartoon, it’s been present ever since. I actually used to draw it on mine with a felt tip pen. I say used to because as a kid I had no clue the ink wouldn’t rub off and redid it multiple times. For a while, Duncan found himself with a variety of different colored mustaches... which, to be honest, would be awesome if he did that in fiction.

A neat thing I’m finding with this toy is how his armor piece rides high, allowing the face guard to partially cover his face. That was something usually featured in the earlier mini comics that I always thought was neat and normally doesn’t happen on his toys. In fact, I don’t think it’s even intended on this one and mine could possibly be defective. It’s not on any pictures I’ve seen of these guys online. If mine does have weirdly molded armor... it’s welcomed.

Like all Mighty Masters figures so far, he has the swinging arm gimmick, which works well with his trademark mace. I’ve always enjoyed MOTU’s weird mixture of fantasy and sci-fi, and Man-At-Arms was an early example of that.

This little line has been a case of “Whoops, all bangers,” and I’m holding out hope that this will be an ongoing series. I can see it becoming my main MOTU toy focus.

Mission Start: Monday

Start battle protocol, initializing a new week. I hope everyone had a good weekend, mine was hectic. The Mrs and I are moving next month which means a lot of work and planning. Not to mention finding time for other activities. The Mrs had gotten some free boxes on Facebook, so Saturday afternoon we took a short trip to a neighboring town to retrieve them. It was quite a lot from a friendly guy who we made small talk with while breaking them down and loading them in our Corolla Cross. Also I partially disassembled the Mrs's vanity as she sold it with intent on getting a smaller one after we move. I remember assembling this one not long after we moved here 6 years ago. As usual, I stayed up late Saturday night with a TV for company. I watched Star Wars, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and both Mr. Boogedy movies while assembling it. The father and daughter who bought it came early Sunday morning, also a friendly group of people. We packed a few box and made plans for our new home with some Halloween cartoons on for background noise. Sunday was also mother's day which included a spaghetti dinner by the Mrs at my mom's house with my older brother visiting.

Not everything was work though. We got some shopping in which finally led to me finding some of the new Tiny Turbo Changers! Long time readers are no doubt aware just how much I loved these. While they're slightly repainted reissues of some of the Cyberverse molds, I'm glad to see them. I picked up 3 packs wanting to keep my spending down (moving is expensive). Of course I have the codes on my phone and picked out Hot Rod, Sky-Byte, and Soundwave. I plan to get the entire series, but in due time. These and other smaller purchases will be fun during the move. I did see some new MOTU movie toys while out. I definitely plan on getting some Chronicles (formerly Masterverse), the new Core line is likely going to be a focus and it looks fun! The Mrs got me a Happy Meal! The current promotion is a Stranger Things tie in with the current animated series that I'm enjoying with mini figures. I got the Vine Monster! Speaking of Happy Meals, those luky folks in Japan are getting an excellent new Changeables series that I'm very jealous of!

I also ordered a box of the new Transformers Blokees Defender Version series 07. I was going to wait for Blokees to stock it on their Amazon store, but sometimes that takes weeks and I'm too damn excited for it. Speaking of, the Mrs and I opened the case of Transformers Blokees Wheels series 2 that came in last week. As usual we took turns opening the blind boxes to see who came in it. One of each in the set with 1 chase taking the place of that characters toy. I got Radiant Roadbuster! I was excited for this as that's specifically the Cloud Roadbuster deco... meaning it's Superlink Roadbuster or Energon Ironhide to us in the States. I do hope to get a regular Roadbuster at some point though. I got some time playing Pragmata in, which I just love. I absolutely love this game. There was an announcement regarding the new Starfox game coming soon for Switch 2 that I'm excitied for. I'm not sure if I'll get it at release or wait a little as I'm not sure if I'll be ready to put Hugh and Diana to the side yet by then. Speaking of Starfox, I'd been planning to use this week's video for a few weeks making for some fun synergy with the timing, but would like to point out some trivia with those infamous puppets that I recently learned.

Takashi Yamazaki, director of Godzilla Minus One, worked on the puppets and commercial! That's so cool! I had a Starfox poster in my room through high school and college with them on it ( it's probably still around here somewhere). It's fun knowing that after all this time he was involved. Apparently Nintendo had plans for Starfox to have a Thunderbirds style TV show to be produced around the time. That would have been so cool! Speaking of cool, this coming weekend I'll be at Rangerstop in Atlanta hosting the Transformers panel with my pal Dusty. That's right, we're working Transformers into Rangerstop! Brett, owner and operator of Toylanta asked if I could help make Transformers part of the show and I'm too happy for the chance. The panel will be Sunday at 12pm, I hope to see some of you there! With the move I'll only be there Sunday, but as this continues to grow, be sure to see me as a permanent fixture! I'll be running off more Zone Base stickers, be sure to get one!

Well, time to get this week started. I've got some work to do around the house and pictures to take for upcoming posts. Life is getting extra busy for the next few weeks, but you can be sure I'll still be bringing plenty of content for your eyeballs! Thank you for reading. Please share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other!

Beast Man [Mighty Masters]

When I first learned about Mighty Masters, it was one of those moments where it feels like I slipped into a parallel universe and toy companies are suddenly dialed directly into my specific tastes.

That’s been happening a lot lately.

Mighty Masters is a new expression of Masters of the Universe, featuring small-scale, fairly faithful recreations of the classic characters. After taking a little too long to show up at my local Walmart, I managed to complete the first series—and we’re going to take a look at them over the next few weeks. 

Because they’re awesome.

I’m starting with Beast Man for a specific reason. He was one of my very first MOTU toys back when they originally came out, along with Man-At-Arms. So yeah, there’s a little bit of attachment here. 

This is a really solid recreation in miniature form. It’s small, but it captures the look of the original toy surprisingly well—with a few tweaks. The original had more human-like feet, while this version gives him clawed feet like he had in the mini-comics, which I actually like.

He’s got articulation in the arms, legs, head, and waist. No rubber bands (thankfully), and no spring-loaded waist either. His right arm features a line-wide gimmick where it can be raised and then brought down in a swinging motion—kind of like a Super Powers Collection figure. 

He also comes with a tiny version of his whip, which feels essential. You can’t have Beast Man without it—it’s how he keeps all those creatures in line. 

For five bucks, this is a great little toy. Honestly, it’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been wanting—especially after the disappearance of the Mega Construx Masters of the Universe figures.

Like I said, I’ve got the full first series, and we’ll be taking a look at the rest over the next few weeks. Hopefully this line sticks around, because it’s hitting a really nice sweet spot.

Supersize Mech

It's time to start another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure Zone Base readers! I hope everyone had a great weekend, mine sure was! Friday morning I headed out shortly after eating breakfast to get a copy of Pragmata for my PS5 before they sold out. For whatever reason, my local Target didn't get any (they're actually getting terrible at launch day releases). So after a visit to the Mrs workplace to drop off some stuff, I stopped by Best Buy shortly after they opened and got a copy. It's funny, Pragmata is a pretty big deal... and I was the only person who knew what it was at either games department. It's really, really good and I'm looking at some serious time spent having adventures on the the moon. I also picked up Age of the Primes Sideways while out Friday morning! This is a toy I've been looking forward to greatly and am so happy to have one!

Saturday, the Mrs and I went to Daiso. I'd been looking forward to this little trip all week as I'm starting a binder project for the various cards and instructions that come with my models. I'm starting small with Blokees, but plan to work my way up to the larger kits. This is the kind of project that's going to be an ongoing adjustment, so I'm predicting a lot of trial and error. I got some binder pages intended for storing Bikkuriman type stickers, which is just right for the pogs and mini cards that come with the blind box Blokees, this project is going to be fun! While there, I also got some figure stands, a Street Fighter blind pack acrylic stand (got Guile's electrocuted skeleton), and some ramune candy for my desk at work (love that stuff). Also of note, I picked up a bity blocks (their version of Nano Blocks) of a little converterting robot that turns into a space ship. I've got a Nano Block backlog that's demanding attention that it's going into. Maybe those will start showing up here. 

Another neat thing Daiso had was little models of Police motorcycles and helicopters that looked perfect for Diaclone pilots. I didn't buy any, but was super tempted. We then stopped by Walmart where I picked up Age of the Primes Big Convoy and Liege Maximo! I've been chasing Big Convoy all year, so this was a big win for me! Also, they had restocked MOTU Mighty Masters and I got Man-at-Arms and Beastman completing the first series. Hopefully these continue as they're certainly coming to random Wednesday posts here soon!

The rest of the weekend was spent playing Pragmata and assembling a desk for the Mrs. I intended to do some room organizing, but my knee was giving me a lot of trouble so that got put off until next weekend. I had broken my left knee a long time ago and there's lingering pain that comes and goes, especially when seasons are changing. Spring is quite chaotic here in the American South, so you can be sure that I'm feeling it literally in my bones. I spent all weekend in my brace unfortunately. However I did get some Blokees assembled Sunday (Sunday is build day!) and enjoyed an excellent Red Robin dinner Sunday courtesy of my mother. She gifted me a dancing Megatron found on clearance and I'm admittedly fond of the silly thing. 

Well, it's time to get this week started Zone Base readers. I've got a fun week in store for you all. Thank you all so much for reading the site. Please share it with your friends and be excellent to each other!

Gimme Monday... no wait... don't

Good morning Zone Base readers and welcome back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! I've got a fun week ahead, but before that, let's talk about the past weekend. I hope yours was well, mine was busy. After a visit to Walmart with the Mrs and enjoying some pizza while watching Five Nights at Freddy's 2, I got to work assembling a new pantry for her. Our old one was a basic cabinet bought after we moved in and now that we've decided to stay for a little longer, it's time to upgrade some of our stuff. 

The new pantry is very nice, but with nice comes a lot of work taking 7 hours. I took an break around 3am to enjoy some Fruit Riot and wacth the TFCON West cosplay contest on YouTube with the Mrs before finally finishing the new pantry. It's in place and she's happy which in turn makes all the work worth it. Sunday, I slept in. After waking and enjoying some breakfast, I disassembled the old pantry and threw it away. Apparently we did it just in time as I was discovering all sorts of structural damage while doing so. Good grief. After a few more tasks, I started work on building some Blokees kits before dinner.

The Mrs made some excellent beef noodle and mashed potatoes. Mom came over and we watched Japanese camper van videos, a recent addiction of mine. I'm not an outdoorsman like my brother, but these are fascinating. Admittedly because I like the gadgets, but still. After dinner I finished the kits while watching paranormal videos with the Mrs. Went went to bed with her falling asleep before me. I watched the newest episode of Kamen Rider Zeztz which was very good as usual and also a little relieving. I was pretty concerned about the ongoing plot (no spoilers). I also updated my Evercade EXP-R as they finally resumed the Highlight of the Month program after a lengthy absence.

This months game is Biomenace Remastered, which as the name suggests is a remastered version of the game Biomenace. Biomenace is a old PC game I'd frankly never heard of before and was admittedly not excited about going in. I was pleasantly surprised to really like it and enjoy the first few levels I got in before calling it a night. I plan to play it a lot more before the Highlight resets next month. However next weekend Pragmata comes out and that's going to take up a lot of gaming time for the next few weeks.

As for toys I got this weekend, boy did I get a good haul. Walmart had a nice selection of Blokees. I got Transformers One related kits. From Galaxy Version series 7 wave 2, I got 2 blind boxes which resulted in Orion Pax (miner) and Soundwave! I also got a Classic Class Shockwave that I look forward to building. Last week I was happy to see that Walmart was now carrying Blokees Marvel kits, but this week noticed they also started carrying Jurrasic World Blokees! I grabbed a blind box egg which turned out to be the Indominus Rex!

Not all were models, Walmart finally had Masters of The Universe Mighty Masters! A new line of pleasantly vintage mini figures that I've been chomping at the bit for. I grabbed He-Man and Skeletor. Man-at-Arms and Beastman are left to find to complete the series, hopefully leading to more waves. Last, but not least is my first experimentation with Armorsaurs. Armorsaurs is a new figure line with a show on Disney +. It's a western adaption of the South Korean show Armored Saurus in the vein of Power Rangers. I haven't watched the show yet, but the toys have been a popular subject in Microfans latley. Considering the new Microman and Micronauts toys out, it's worth noting that something adjacent would gather so much attention.

Armorsaurs features armored heroes with dinosaur themed powers and mecha. The figures have snap on armor as well as dinosaurs available to use them with. The smaller dinos are mecha that the figures can ride that convert from dino to vehicles. There's larger armored dinosaurs also for the figures to ride as well. Right now I'm keeping it small as I dip my toes into the pool. I picked up Liam, who is the series Red Ranger equivalent.

I also got some chrome sticker paper to accompany the colored sheets I've been using for Zone Base stickers. They look cool and I can't wait to print off a batch. I'll be attending Rangerstop this May, so be sure to get one if you're there. Brett, the organizer of Toylanta has taken it over and invited myself to operate Transformers content there! It's been way too long since I've attended Rangerstop and helped it grow is something I'm excited to do!

Well, it's time to get this week started. I've got some site pics to take and stuff around the house to do before work this evening. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. Last Friday was the 10th anniversary of the sites first post and I'm really proud of it. It's super neat to watch it grow over the past decade and very flattering to see all of you come out and support it. Thank you so much. Please share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other.

Ninjor [Masterverse / New Eternia]

The demon king from the Dimension of Noir silently searched the scattered remains of New Eternia for the Power of Grayskull so he may become an immortal force of evil.

It’s been way too long since I’ve talked about Masters of the Universe here on the site, and like many of you, the upcoming movie has me pretty excited. So what better time to get back into the He-Man groove than now?

I received this Ninjor from my mother as a birthday gift, and I was immediately into it. The New Eternia figures in Masterverse have been a real sweet spot for me since they were introduced, and Ninjor—already a favorite—fits right in.

New Eternia takes a more fantastical approach to the MOTU characters, often pulling from concept art or expanding on ideas that were only lightly touched on before. Ninjor has always been a demon ninja, but here they really lean into that concept. He’s got additional armor, more dramatic claws, and an overall design that pushes him further into that supernatural space.

There are some really nice details throughout. The red eyes stand out immediately, and he comes with alternate face options. One of them is a snap-on face showing Ninjor without his zukin, revealing a mean expression with solid white eyes that really amps up his spookiness. He also includes an Oni mask, which I absolutely love. Between that, the claws, and the armor design, the Oni influence is very intentional. There are even small touches like an Oni face sculpted onto his nunchuck holster.

I say this a lot with recent MOTU releases, but this feels more like a designer toy. It’s just a really good-looking figure.

Ninjor comes with his traditional weapons—nunchucks, katana, and a bow and arrow—all styled to match his look with red flame effects and sculpted demon details. Everything about it feels cohesive and well thought out.

This feels like a high-end figure, and it’s easily my top-tier Ninjor now that I have one.

Monday & Punishment

Monday again, it was just Sunday and I was happily playing Doom and enjoying my weekend. Oh well, welcome back to another week on Zone Base. Hopefully you all had a great weekend, I did. The Mrs and I did our weekly shopping and enjoyed a fun Easter by Watching The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and enjoying a peaceful day at home. While out Saturday I picked up a few fun things. We stopped at Aldi because they have excellent produce and I picked up a MrBeast Labs Hybrids. I've been meaning to check these blind monster packs out regardless of the apparently famous YouTube guys name on the label. They're fun modular figures with emphasis on mix and match parts that look to use the Glyos system. I got Serpanther in mine, a red Gorgon/panther hybrid. Pretty neat, though the tail section is made of some cheap plastic.

At Walmart I got a Blokees Classic Class Soundwave from Transformers One and the new Walmart Exclusive gold Skeletor from the new MOTU Core Class line that I'm pretty excited about. It's a slightly smaller action figure range for Masters of The Universe that's seemingly movie and classis character based. I plan to cover them pretty throughly here as they're perfect Wednesday post material. I also look forward to building that Soundwave soon. 

The Mrs surprised me with a very cool Easter Basket full of candy, a MrBeast Labs Swarms blind pack, some of his candy (literally, who is this guy and why is his name on some pretty good products?) A MOTU X Transformers Scareglow Starscream (now I own the complete set), The Red Rodan Kaiju Ranger figure from Playmates new Power Rangers X Godzilla figures (must get all these), as well as some Reese's and Hershey Easter Candy. There's also a Super Mario Pez dispenser in there that I'm tempted to carry around regularly. Some people vape, I Pez. It was a great surprise and I think she liked her Easter basket from me. I got her a canvas print of our cats... it's on the wall over the TV. 

She made one excellent Sunday dinner that I enjoyed while finishing the last of my Blokees Defender Version kits that haven't been assembled yet and of course playing Doom. There's a new Defender Version series on the way that I can't wait to get my hands on as well as more Wheels. So good! Well, it may be spring, but I've got Halloween on my mind and the beginnings of this years 3 month long spooky season is cooking in my brain. Last year we broke site records, let's see how big Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem is in 2026! Well, it's time to get this week started. It's a special week here on the site as I renewed the domain for the 10th time... that's right, Zone Base turns 10 this week and it's really amazing to see how it's grown over the years. Thank you all for reading and supporting the site. Please don't forget to share with your friends and be excellent to each other.

ToyLanta 2026!

It’s time once again for ToyLanta!

I’ll be attending the convention all weekend and, as usual, doing a daily report right here! I’ll also be hosting the annual Transformers panel with Dusty — if you’re at the show, please come by and join in! The panel will be Sunday at 2pm!

Be sure to check out my Instagram for photos from the show, and don’t forget to check back here daily for updates as the weekend unfolds!

Friday – I got a late start heading to the show for the first day thanks to traffic (ug, driving through Atlanta) arriving just before 7pm. This left me a little time to check in (Hi Brett!) and and check out the Friday preview. ToyLanta has really grown to a HUGE show, so I hardly had time to check out around 1/4th of the lower show floor before it was time to leave. Fortunately I made the most of that time and enjoyed myself greatly.

There were many cool toy companies on hand and I found myself having some great conversations. While checking out things, I ran into Jerry. Jerry is a great guy and it's always good to see him. We chatted some about Transformers Cybertron before heading about to check out more of the show. I look forward to seeing him more later. I also made a new friend Garry who was setting up one really awesome booth. He had a ton of Transformers including a plentiful amount of Blokees and a great Unicron display. Speaking of Blokees, there was SO MANY! I was in heaven... will be buying so many.

One thing that absolutely floored me was the amount of people enjoying my stickers. The Mrs had gotten me a thermal printer at Christmas and I designed a new sticker to hand out for Zone Base. Well, I brought a little over 60 (in multiple colors) in my Shin-Chan pouch to hand out and... they were gone in minutes! I saw people sticking them on their bags, their phones, everywhere! Talk about flattering.

After roaming around after the dealer preview closed for a little bit I headed home for the night. I had stopped by Kroger to pick the Mrs up a few things before heading home and parked next to an SUV completely full of trash. Well, it looked like trash. Tons of crap.. and boxes of pho. Weird. After heading home I enjoyed some pizza and TV with the Mrs before printing out more stickers for Saturday.

I printed out 120-130 more (in various colors) while the Mrs cut them out. The Shin-Chan pouch is full again! Well, it's late as I'm writing this on my phone in bed with MXC on in the background. Time to get some sleep, there's a whole weekend of Toylanta ahead of me... and I'm excited.

My haul for Friday is was a Servo from Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad/Gridman and a purle keshi of the Last Seeker that comes with a mini-comic. It was originally a BotCon 2022 exclusive, so that's neat to own. The Last Seeker had a booth with the main toy available in multiple colors. I'm deciding which one to get as it's pretty tempting in each option. Also Warlords of Wor have an excellent booth (as usual) and I've got my work cut out for me picking what I want. Decisions, decisions.

Saturday – I got to the show around 12pm starting my day not terribly long after the show's start. I ran into Mike and Judy in the parking garage as we were taking pictures of our parking locations to remember for later. The day is actually something of a blurr, so I'll just give highlights.

David Faustino was a con guest for Saturday only, leading to Bud Bundy delivering many of the convention announcements. I stuck around to see his autograph session begin with a guy dressed as Al Bundy who brought a replica of the Bundy couch for the two to sit on for a picture. Later after I had went to put my hoodie in my car, I saw the guy carrying the couch out of the convention center. Dude just brought a couch with him.

Speaking of guests, Daniel Pesnia and Anthony Marquez who were in the original Mortal Kombat games were guests at the show (among other esteemed folks). By chance I was wearing a cool Mortal Kombat t-shirt the Mrs had given me. As I walked past them, Daniel Pesnia stepped to me to tell me he liked my shirt and introduce himself. We totally shook hands and exchanged pleasantries for a bit. Johnny Cage is a very nice guy. 

I ran into Jerry again who had friends in tow whoms names I can't currently remember (sorry guys, it was cool talking with you). I also ran into Matt whom I befriended at the 2024 show and never saw last year. I'm looking forward to catching up with him tomorrow! I also chatted some with 2M3D Prints whom I had bought some cool dragons for the Mrs from in 2023.

I also met Team No Sleep 3D and bought some cute stuff for the Mrs. That was a real treat as they work in special effects for movies and TV. It was cool talking with them, especially as that was something I wanted to do as a kid. Speaking of new friends, I met Rise of the Nexus a husband and wife duo whom were showcasing their new action figure/table top game system. Really cool people whom I enjoyed speaking with.

Of course I made time to chat with Gary some more whom I met Friday. Seriously cool dude. I also enjoyed chatting with others whom were working with him at their booth, an all around great group of people. Of course I made a point to say hi to Brett, the organizer of Toylanta whenever I saw him. He's doing an excellent job with the show and has taken it to all new heights. It's really impressive just how big this convention has gotten.

As for toys I bought today, first I picked up one of the full Last Seeker in Euro G2 colors. It looks fabulous and had a hard time not getting the black version... but me and G2, it's a vibe. I also picked up a great Zombie Sci Fi guy set from Warlords of Wor with plans on getting a few more kits from him before the end of the show. Skeletron had a booth and I picked up the new Red Shadows figure that they debuted at the show.

I picked up a Blokees Shining Edition  blind box from Gary's table. I opened it with some of the cool people at the table and got a Ratchet! I'll definitely pick up a few more from him tomorrow (and open them with my new friends). Speaking of Blokees, there was SO MANY at the show.

Some dealers even selling loose assembled figures, in which I picked up a Bombshell whom I've been looking to get. That completes the Insecticons, leading to a post Ive been wanting to write here for the site. Please look forward to that soon. I also picked up a Gobots Psycho for $15 in decent shape. I've been wanting a Psycho for sometime, so this was exciting. 

I headed home shortly after the dealer room closed for the evening very, very tired. According to my Galaxy Watch I've walked almost 8,000 steps today (cons are WORK). The Mrs had a sandwich from Subway waiting for me as well as a birthday cake and presents! Monday is my birthday and she made a point to celebrate with me today as a way of making the con even more special.

I won't go every gift, but there was Transformers and He-Man toys. A new pair of ramen noodle sandals, a new pair of Hey Dudes (my favorite shoes), a case for my Atari Gamestation Go, a Godzilla sticker, some awesome Jada Godzilla figures, Zoids, and another box of color sticker paper for my sticker printer.

Those stickers were just as popular today and people were proudly representing Zone Base. That's so flattering and amazing for me personally. I don't have the biggest social media presence, but I take notice of the sites views. Several thousands of you come out each week and read my site and it's so flattering and awesome. However actually seeing people happily taking my stickers and proudly displaying them is something I never imagined. Seriously, thank you everyone. Your support means so much to me.

We've got just one more day of Toylanta 2026 left and I'm both excited for another day and sad there's just one day left. This has definitely been one for the history books. I've actually been extremely overwhelmed latley and this weekend being pure exhilaration has been amazing. Just a heads up, the Sunday report may not be published until Monday morning. The Mrs and my Mom will be having my birthday dinner Sunday evening for me when I get home from the show. Seriously, best weekend ever.

There's a guy who looks like Adam the Woo (RIP) whom I keep seeing, I'm probably creeping him out.

Sunday – Sunday started out at home with the Mrs making us breakfast before me heading out to the show. Getting there just before noon, I decided that I wanted to get selfies with friends and the various awesome people at the show. I got to work on that right away and handed put more stickers. Speaking of, if you're new to Zone Base, thanks for checking it out! I bought a Big Bad Beetleborgs Titanium Silver figure that was taped to a jet? The jet connects to the kabuto toy from the same line, so if I ever find that.

I also picked up a Geodraxus Stealth MK IV from the Warlords of Wor booth. I've been wanting a Geodraxus for some time and they tend to sell out fast. Actually, there was a pleasant amount of Glyos on the sales floor and I kind of wish I would have gotten more. There was one Zeiram figure made from Glyos I was sooo close to buying, but was a little too pricey for comfort. I also grabbed two more Shining Edition Blokees from Gary's table. I got Grimlock and Sideswipe! I'm definitely getting more Shining Edition kits in the future, though Wheels Series 02 and Defender Version series 7 are next on my Blokees buying radar. 

I did my rounds getting selfies and talking with awesome people before Dusty showed up. We chatted a while before heading to start the annual Transformers Panel. While there Dusty gifted me the new Generations Seaspray figure! Thanks Dusty! While we were preparing to start the panel, Dusty set out more repro label faction sticker sheets for guests as well as a print of Gears he had drawn that the art had been pirated for a third party toy. While we waited, Greg Berger walked in and joined us! That's right, Grimlock himself. Which made for the second time I got a Grimlock suprise that day. While Sunday panels tend to have lighter attendance, we had a great group and the panel was a great time.

Heading out, I took the Gears picture with intentions to frame it. It looks like the Mrs and I will be moving soon and I can't wait to put it on the wall of my new toy room. The con was wrapping up and I said my goodbyes to everyone. It's always sad to see it end. Fortunately Brett has recently taken over Ranger Stop and asked me to host a Transformers panel there this summer. After checking with the Mrs (we're moving this summer, so making sure it was an option was really important) I can gladly say I'll be there! 

Traffic on the way home was interesting. The opposite side of the interstate at one point had been shut down. It looked like something serious had happened, but I'm not sure what. Wow. I got home just in time for the Mrs to have my birthday dinner ready for us to eat. Mom joined us and gave me two Masters of the Universe Masterverse toys! We enjoyed dinner with birthday cake before I ended the night playing Doom before watching the 70's Tales from the Darkside movie. 

Today though, we're back to normal. It's actually my birthday today, and I plan on spending it relaxing and getting a nap or two in before work tonight. Of course there's pics for upcoming posts to take and a few household chores to do. Our first big event of the year may be over, but as always it's always robots, monsters, and misadventure here on Zone Base! Thank you all for reading. Please don't forget to share with your friends and be excellent to each other!

New Week 64

Another weekend has come and gone, leaving us with Monday and it's curse of another work week. Fortunately, we've got a fun week of robots, monsters, and misadventure here on Zone Base. I hope everyone had a great weekend, mine sure was! The Mrs and I took a trip to a slightly out of town Walmart just for the hell of it and while there I got some great deals on some clearance toys! The Walmart Exclusive capsule lines seemed to have ended with the pirate set, but that doesn't mean they stopped having exclusives all together. Various vintage style releases and last fall a great two figure homage to Transformers Cybertron for it's 20th anniversary. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get them then, but thankfully picked them up this weekend. Sideways and Excellion were favorites from the original line, so the updates were most welcome. I also picked up a Masterverse Terror Claws Skeletor. 

I definitely enjoyed my cheat meal for the week, Taco Bell! It's been far too long since I've had some despite practically eating it every day in college. Sunday, I intended to wash my car and put some new cool hubcaps on it, but a very rainy day delayed that until next weekend. However did take the time to do some household cleaning and spend some time with Resident Evil Requiem and building that Optimus Prime with trailer Wheels kit.  The Mrs made a great chicken dinner Sunday night with a tasty strawberry crumble cake. 

I'm admittedly a little late getting this update out. I had to take some stuff to donate to Goodwill and do an Amazon return at the UPS store... which had a Yu-Gi-Oh card stuck the the window like a bizarre curse... I've had nothing but great service at this location, so hopefully it's for defense of one. Daylight Savings Time also started this weekend, so I'm completely off schedule. What's completely on schedule is a Mega Week of posts here on the site. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. I really appreciate your support. If you could, please share the site with your friends and don't ever forget to be excellent to each other.

Monday's on it (and is an asshole)

It's time to start another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure Zone Base readers. I had a great weekend and hope you did too! I spent Saturday with the Mrs enjoying Valentines Day. We did some shopping and enjoyed dinner at Outback Steakhouse (despite one long ass wait). Later that night, I enjoyed more episodes of Kamen Rider Zezt. Sunday we spent the day at home with some fun TV. The Mrs made us a wonderful barbecue dinner that I plan on enjoying leftovers from today. Mom came over and we watched The Super Mario Brothers movie with that excellent food. I built several Blokees, including assembling Defender Version Bruticus. We'll be talking about that in an upcoming post. 

Like many of you, I enjoyed the news from New York Toy Fair 2026. There was SEVERAL exciting products shown off and frankly, I'm excitied. All along the kaiju front was looks at the upcoming Power Rangers x Godzilla figures from Playmates that I'm literally salivating over. In addition, TMNT x Godzilla's second wave was shown off. This is something I've been actually pretty anxious about. I've got the first wave, which does not include Donatello... leaving me feeling a little uneasy. Thankfully Donny is in wave 2 alongside Shredder and Splinter. I plan on covering the series soon after we spend a few Wednesdays finishing up another set started a few months ago. Speaking of Godzilla,  it looks like Godziban will be getting a US release and I about crapped my pants. This is awesome! Speaking of Power Rangers, the Re-Ignition series will also get a version of the Thunder Megazord that I'm looking forward to. There was more looks at the upcoming MOTU movie toys and I'm really excited for the core class toys. Sure, I'll get some Chronicles... but those core class figures look great. 

As far as Transformers go, several were shown off with Studio Series 86 getting more exciting toys to go along with this years 40th anniversary of the 1986 movie. I'm hoping for theatrical showings of the movie this year similar to the Transformers 40th Anniversary Theatrical Event in 2024, I really enjoyed that. Of course Blokees and Yolopark showed off upcoming kits, I'm STOKED for Wheels wave 2. I've been really enjoying building wave 1 and we'll start looking at them soon. Most exciting was the showing of new Cyberworld toys. Outright blowing the prior toys out of the water with exciting and imaginative designs, you can be sure I'll be all over these and covering them here. So far we've covered the complete line here on Zone Base and that's something I plan to continue. The pirate ship Scourge and sea creature Soundwave look amazing and I am VERY excited for more of this awesome and fun Transformers series. 

There was several more cool toys shown off, but that's what's filling my mind as I write this on my tablet while watching a video on Space Godzilla. I got some cool toys this weekend too. While at Five Below, I picked up a new Mutant Monsters ball. There's a few more that so far have only have appeared at Five Below and this was the first time I've seen any. When I get the rest, we'll continue our look at those. I also got a fun pack of Transformers pencils at Five Below that I'll likely never use... but had to have. The newer Authentics were there, but I didn't get them. Maybe one day. Walmart had Quintus Prime and Amalgamous Prime whom I gladly bought. This leaves only Alpha Trion missing in my quest to get all of the Primes in the Age of the Primes line. I left Wreck-Gar behind, though I'll likely get him later. Generations Transformers prices are too high for me to buy that many at once in good conscience. Definitely acquiring them at a slower pace.

Sunday I ordered the Mrs and myself Happy Meals for a quick lunch and got two more Changeables. Unfortunately they were both FR-13S, whom I now have 4 of (dammit). Neatly enough, they came with sticker sheets! So far I haven't gotten any stickers with the new Changeables,  so that was neat. Also we normally get extra fries instead of the apple slices. But since my local McDonald's is a dumpster fire and has a mission statement to screw up every order, every time, we got the apple slices (and a refund... I'm starting to wonder how much money Door Dash makes as they literally refund every order we make). However... the apple slices came in Changeables baggies! Neat! I'll definitely be making some Instagram stories with those when enjoying them as a snack later. 

Well, it's time to get this week started. Household chores and toy picks for upcoming posts need to be done. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. It's extremely flattering to see the thousands of you coming out every day and reading. Please don't forget to share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other!

Defeat Monday (please)

Good morning Zone Base readers! Another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure is starting full of fun for your eyeballs. Tomorrow is Setsubun, and while we don't celebrate it here in the states, I think it's really neat! I hope everyone had a good weekend, mine was pretty good! Another weekend of winter weather kept the Mrs and I home while roads got icy. We had a small amount of snow, but nothing major despite local news reports predicting a winter wonderland.  So obviously we didn't get out, but still had tons of fun at home. I spent some time playing Shadow Labrinth. I've actually gotten so many games at Christmas that I have a hard time picking one to play at a time. Shadow Labyrinth is a really neat game that got my attention when released and I was delighted to see under the tree as a gift from the Mrs. It's a really cool Metroidvania style game set in something of a Namco expanded universe. I really like it. I also finally got in some episodes of the new Kamen Rider Zezt. it premired last year and while I inteded to watch it weekly... those plans feel though. Fortunately it's easy enough to watch the show in it's entirety thanks to Tokushoutsu. I'm glad I did finally watch it, it's awesome!

Upcoming toy news from the weekend was certainty exciting. There were looks at upcoming Transformers from the Age of the Primes lines. Smokescreen from Transformers Prime is getting a new figure I'm really looking forward to. His original toy from the Prime line was a nightmare to transform and wasn't exactly screen accurate, so it'll be nice to have a hopefully better incarnation as I enjoyed the character on the show. Of course it'll be the Generations style Prime toy that's more traditional looking... but I kinda like that to be honest. Prime has a specific asthetic that looked great, but I do like the style unification in Generations. Also shown was Nexus Prime and Liege Maximo. Like Jhiaxhus, Liege Maximo is a must get as a G2 comic fan. Nexus Prime is a new take on the character that strongly resembles Courageous from Gobots. It apparently will form a combiner with the new Combaticons, so I'm pretty interested. The original Nexus Prime was a TFCC exclusive combiner whose members were membership exclusives. It took me 5 years to build that one, and frankly is still pretty high on a pedestal in my mind. However, this one looks like a lot of fun! I'm actually pretty far behind on Age of the Primes toys, so here's hoping I can catch up soon.

Also news of upcoming Cyberworld toys came this weekend. There has been leaks of upcoming toys in the line, but a picture of a new large scale Bumblebee and listings of upcoming Cyber Changers were unleashed this weekend. The prior leaks are from a reliable source, but theseare a little more concrete for the time being. The larger scale Bumblebee looks fun from what I can tell. Like Scorponok, it looks to be a bit of a playset... and I get Shogun Warrior vibes from both... and that's a good thing. According to the listings, the Cyber Changers (the real meat of the line) are an Optimus Primal truck and an Arachnid that looks to be an Armored Cyber Changer figure. The Arachnid doesn't seem to have many details ther than a hammer weapon. I hope she's a spider... but will gladly take a helicopter or drone as she's been used as. The Optimus Primal truck may be a reuse of the Offroad Optimus Prime toy, which was a figure I really liked. It did specifically say gorilla truck, so I wonder if it'll be a beast mode with wheels type alt mode like Sky-Byte. Either way, I'm super excited. I had so much fun with the prior Cyberworld toys, I can't wait to get my hands on more!

There was also news of new Masters of the Universe toys that tie into the upcoming movie. I haven't covered a MOTU figure in a while here despite still getting a fair amount this whole time. I actually don't cover every toy I get here, but try to make posts on ones that'd make for good material. The random Wednesdays just might be getting more He-Man this year as these new movie figures look great! There's the new Chronicles line that looks to be taking over Masterverse in the higher end 6 inch action figure area, while a more simple and less exspensive movie tie in line that looks like a lot of fun. Right now I plan to cherry pick figures from boths movie based series, but to be honest, I'm really looking forward to the Evil Warriors from that more simple line. They look like a fun little series to collect and talk about here. What is it about the more simplier figures that makes for good blogging material?

As for purchases, I finally ordered the Blokees Wheels series 1 box. I'd been wanting it for a bit now and finally took the plunge. It should be here this week and I'm excitied! I also ordered the Blokees Defender Version Bruticus kit. Defender Version 06 came in last week with the last few Combaticons members. Be sure to look out for an upcoming post about that team. I've been building models my entire life, but for the past few years Transformers models kits have been commanding a larger portion of my attention than the regular toys. It's a bit of a struggle giving models and toys a decent amount of site time. Models are a lot of fun to write about and I can tell by the views they seem to be more popular with you readers, but I don't want to give figures the shaft either. We'll, I guess we'll just see what I talk about each week! I also got some of the new McDonald's Changeables! You all know how much I love the classic ones and this new series is excellent! I've been trying to watch what I eat, so it's a tricky balance of working Happy Meals in with a balanced diet. Fortunatley the Mrs and my Mom are willing to help. So far I've gotten 2 CapCaps, FR-135, and Torrus. I hope to get more and am hoping to find the ones I miss on the aftermarket for reasonable prices. It's actually a pretty popular promotion, so that might be quite a challenge. I also ordered a new SD card reader as I still can't locate my old one. Good thing they're cheap! I can't wait to load the card I built last weekend onto my Atari Gamestation Go.

Well, it's Monday, so that means it's time to get to works taking toy pics and doing some household chores. Of course I also need to get my daily exercise in. Five miles on the exersize bike as well as some included exercises only takes around 30 minutes a day... but man... sometimes is hard to make myself do. Oh well, it's for the better. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. You'd never know from social media, but several thousand of you show up to read daily and I really appreciate it. It's super flattering. I've got a fun week in store for you all with some fun posts headed your way. You could say this week is leading the way... you know that sounded better in my mind than typed out. I guess that's what happens when you try to be clever with toy based tag lines.  Please don't forget to share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other!

By the Power of Grayskull!

New Week 2000

Hello Zone Base readers! Welcome back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! I hope everyone had a great weekend, I sure did! I enjoyed a low key weekend with the Mrs, enjoyed her great cooking, watched Stranger Things with her and Mom, worked on more Halloween backdrops for toy pics here on the site, and played Donkey Kong Bananza! Once again my Walmart didn't have any new toys, but I ordered Cyberworld Bumblebee and Snarl! Bumblebee will be here later this week, but Snarl won't arrive until a little later. I have no clue why he's the harder of the initial batch of Cyberworld toys to get, but I happily got one for standard retail.

My most recent Blokees order came in Sunday and the Mrs and I had fun opening the boxes and checking the trading card to see who as inside! I've got 2 cases of Galaxy Version Defender kits to start work on soon. I'll probably order another soon as well, I really love the Defender type kits and feel like they're perfect for site content. In a conversation on Blokees Facebook page, another poster suggested they do Battle Beasts in the Defender range. What a great idea! Part of me majorly prefers things like Blokees and Yolopark kits these days to traditional Transformers toys. I spent years of my youth painting miniatures and building models and Zoids. I guess these just vibe with that part of my brain. 

Speaking of vibing with my brain, both SCCC and Wonderfest Summer was this weekend. I definitely enjoyed the new toy reveals at SDCC. Transformers, Masters of The Universe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Godzilla, and others made a great showing with tons of exciting new releases in store. While I appreciate that, I won't lie, it feels like another official reveal like these companies do all year. It's exciting, for sure, but what really gets my heart going is the pictures from Wonderfest. I spent hours this weekend looking them over and wishing I were there. 

Well, I've got a fun week in store for you all. This is the prelude before Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem starts next week! I'm so excited that I swapped the site over to fall colors last week! It's good to freshen things up occasionally and with the 100+ degree heat I'm having...  the cooler temperatures of fall feels forever away. It's about to get extra spooky around Planet Zone for the next 3 months and I'm excited! Well, thank you all for reading Zone Base. Your support means so very much to me. This isn't one of those corporate sites that just want your money and you all are real ones for just wanting to enjoy our hobbies. Please be sure to share the site with your friends and Mutual High Fives everyone!

Scrambled New Week

Hello Zone Base readers, thank you all for coming back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! I hope everyone had a great weekend, mine sure felt like a holiday break. Saturday the Mrs and did our weekend shopping which included a visit to At Home to look at whatever new Halloween stuff they had stocked. There was quite a bit with room for more to come! It's quite exhilarating and even refreshing to see it out in the middle of summer. Here in the American South, it gets very hot in the summer. We'll be having 100 degree days from now until September, so a reminder that fall is coming is nice. We picked up a few items and a little more at TJ Max whom also starts early. We had a delivery from Target who begins their Halloween stocking online in summer. This would be our second shipment this summer and they're looking to have a great selection this year. The neon colors are returning alongside their trademark cozy offerings. Of course Lewis has more cool merchandise as well. We're fans of him in our household and can't get enough! 

We picked up Donkey Kong Bananza Saturday as well. What a great game. Action platformer games are my favorite video games to play and this is one for the record books. It's open world with a ton of collectibles to search for with a great setting and story. Add in tight controls and pure fun. It's just so much fun! You can literally spend hours not doing anything important and still feel satisfied with doing so! Walmart didn't have any new toys still, which is getting pretty frustrating. I have a few more Turtles of Grayskull figures to get and it'd be great to find new Transformers on shelves. I love Transformers One, but seeing the same stock for a year now is exhausting. Fortunately my Cyberworld order came in during the week and another Blokees order was made this weekend.

Cyberworld is providing to be a great line that's going to be fun to cover here on the site. While I talked about Grimlock in June, it's going to be great to show the main figures. So far I have Optimus Prime, Megatron, Skybite, and Galvatron. Bumblebee and Snarl have been tricky to find at the moment, though I'm sure will be easier in the coming days as stores stock the toys. They're online at some retailers for a much higher price than Walmart and Amazon. Of course sites with related ads won't tell you that! These figures are essentially sized up Legends/Legion class figures with the higher priced ones coming with large weapons. Simplicity being their nature, you shouldn't pay too much. Don't let the basics fool you though, they're a lot of fun. My look at them will start next week, remember, I'm generally a week or two ahead on scheduling content.

After some sleep Saturday afternoon, I woke up that evening (at that point I'd been awake for 24 hours) to enjoy some good food and TV with the Mrs. She made me french bread pizza which was great! It's worth nothing the entirety of my food Saturday was some sort of pizza breads. Lunch was pizza bites from Wetzel's Pretzels and a boba. Dinner later that evening was some delicious home made french bread pizza. The Mrs feel asleep on the couch, in which I enjoyed some videos on YouTube before the power suddenly shutting off. We had a blackout! Fortunately the Switch 2 had a full charge to entertain in portable mode untill the power came back on. Well that and a nice nap. When the power came back with some much appreciated air conditioning (it's still at least 80 degrees at night) the Mrs went back to sleep while I watched those videos. I spent most of the night enjoying the Retro Kids channel. His content includes assembling and customizing vintage models kits mostly with other fun stuff as well. I greatly enjoyed one with trip to a recent model show in Japan. It sure was cool seeing all that mecha! Between his content and Donkey Kong... somehow I didn't get any more sleep after that blackout nap. It was dawn before I knew it and the magic of a Saturday that felt like a weekend upon itself was over. 

Sunday was spent with a wonderful breakfast made by the Mrs, more Donkey Kong, a nap around noon, and several episodes of Stranger Things with Mom ordering us dinner! I had some wonderful sushi and ice cream as we enjoyed the first half of season 3. Our rewatch of the series is chugging along and Mom is hooked even more than I realized. She literally called me after getting back home that evening to ask me about it! I then spent some time working on spooky backdrops for this years Halloween time content and... more Donkey Kong. It's really that good!

Well, I've got a fun week in store for you! Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem starts in 2 weeks and I've got my hands full getting everything in place. For those who haven't experienced a Zone Base Halloween yet, it's a mixture of Halloween and regular content with a little extra spooky flair! It's a ton of fun, a ton of posts, and a ton of Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem for 3 months. It's our Superbowl, our Wrestlemania, our big event of the year... without one cent asked from you readers. Zone Base is about having fun with our hobbies from the bottom of our heart, not your wallets. All I ask is that you share the site with your friends. Well, I'm going to enjoy the rest of this strawberry acai refresher before getting to work on some household chores. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. We have fun here and that we includes each and every one of you. Mutual High Fives everyone!